Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of increasing the number of district heating schemes.

The Government believes that heat networks are an essential part of a decarbonised future energy system. In high density urban areas, they are often the lowest cost, low carbon heating option, and can use a range of low carbon energy sources such as waste heat from industry. This helps to reduce costs for consumers and strengthens the Uk’s energy resilience.

The Committee for Climate Change has recommended the government grows the heat network sector from providing 3% of national heat demand to 20% by 2050. We are implementing heat network zoning and funding low carbon heat networks to get to this scale.